The Little Red Hood
by Mia Calima
Summary: So…no TARDIS, no sonic screwdriver, stuck on a parallel world -in Norway, no less- and still trouble manages to find the Doctor and Rose Tyler. What could be striking down people in a small Norwegian village, and what it the Doctor's Metacrisis going to do about it?
1. Chapter 1

I know that everyone and their-mother's-neighbor's-dog's-cousin has done a story about the Rose Tyler and the Doctor's metacrisis, but I just couldn't resist the urge to take a crack at it myself. This story is set just after the Doctor (original) and Donna Noble leave Rose and the Doctor duplicate on the beach in the parallel world.

It goes without saying that I do not own Dr. Who or any other characters from the movie.

Chapter 1

"Yeah, we ended up in the back of bloody Norway again" Jackie's voice drifted back over the squawking of seagulls.

"All of space and time, and he drops us back here, if you can believe it."

Rose bit her lip and glanced at the Doctor to find him shaking his head and staring after Jackie. Despite herself, Rose smiled.

"Don't worry, she always gets like this when she hasn't had her tea."

He turned his head to look at her and grinned.

"I remember."

Rose tried to hold her smile in place, but failed, and so turned back to staring at the path in front of her. Her Mum's voice was fainter now as her quick strides had taken her much further than Rose and the Doctor's more shambling pace.

"We'll catch a zeppelin once we get to the village, so you can tell Tony that Mummy will be home tomorrow."

It was as if nothing had happened. As if they hadn't just stopped the end of reality. As if she hadn't shot herself across parallel worlds and battled monsters, and…_found the Doctor again._ She snuck another glance at him; the Doctor's metacrisis.

She didn't know what to do about him.

_I don't even know what to call him?_

He was deliberately shortening his stride to walk with her and seemed determined to let her take the lead in any conversation as well. Which meant that they hadn't really said much more than half a dozen words to each other since the TARDIS left the beach. She just couldn't figure out what to say.

_He's the Doctor, but how can he be my Doctor when my Doctor is still out in another universe?_

It was maddening. …And why had she had to go and snog him on the beach, in front of her mother, and…the Doctor.

A flash of bright red in the corner of her eye drew her attention, and Rose looked over to her right. A little girl in a red hooded cloak that came down almost to her ankles was skipping along through the sea grass only a hundred or so yards away.

_Playing dress up in a fairy tale costume, how sweet. _Rose smiled as she glanced around for the girl's parents. _They must be around. She's not more than six, after all._

Sea dunes and rocky hills surrounded the small track leading them back to the little village on the Bay, which Rose only vaguely remembered from the last time when she had been concentrating on following the Doctor' call, and then later, grieving over his departure.

The little girl in the red hood seemed completely at home in the place, moving lightly through the grass and rocks up the dune in front of them.

Rose watched her skip past, just a few yards in front of her mother, until she disappeared on the other side of the dune. Jackie was still on the phone and didn't seem to notice. Rose quickened her pace without really thinking about it.

_Her parents are probably on the other side._

She crested the dune, with the Doctor at her side, looked down the other side onto the immediate outskirts of the village, and frowned. There were several shabby looking houses and one or two caravans with cars parked beside them not far from the track, but she saw no little girl in a red cloak.

Rose didn't realized that she was stopped in the middle of the road until the Doctor called her name. She looked over at him quickly to find him giving her a concerned appraisal.

"You okay?"

She took another look around without seeing the little girl and shrugged.

"Yeah, I guess so."

_She's a fast little scamp to get inside_ _before I could see her. _Rose thought and then realized that the Doctor was still regarding her and another awkward silence was building. She shifted uncomfortably.

"Um… we'd better catch up." Rose nodded to the form of Jackie ahead of them and began walking again. After a moment the Doctor fell in stride and they headed into the village in a silence that practically strained at the seams with unsaid words.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Rose, come over here! This one can't speak a bloody word of English." Rose looked up from the aisle of crisps and candy in front of her at the sound of her mother's voice. It wasn't a large shop they were in, but it was the only one with a transport kiosk that they had yet found in the tiny Norwegian village. Jackie Tyler was currently standing in front of the man at the kiosk, looking irritated and impatient.

As a matter of habit, Rose glanced around for the Doctor. He was standing in front of a little spinning rack of cheap spectacles, squinting through a pair that were so ghastly she had to laugh. He looked over at her and smiled.

"Yes?"

She raised her eyebrows and shook her head.

"O' no!"

"Rose!" Jackie's voice was loud enough that a few of the other shoppers looked up, and the man behind the kiosk winced. Rose turned toward her hurriedly.

"All right, I'm coming!" She yelled back. "No need to shout."

"He just keeps shaking his head, like an idiot, and I can't make out a word of it." Jackie complained as Rose came up to the little counter.

"I thought that everyone knew English these days. What if I was traveling alone, I ask you?"

"As if you ever would." Rose shook her head at her mother, and turned to smile at the man behind the counter.

"Sorry about that. We just need three tickets on the next Zepplin to the U.K."

The man sighed.

"This is what I was trying to tell her; we only have Zepplin service on Fridays."

Rose frowned.

"What's today then?"

The kiosk assistant gave her a very odd look, but dutifully supplied the day.

"It is the Thursday, December the fifteenth. Do you require the year as well?"

Rose lifted an eyebrow.

"Right, no need to be cheeky about it. Do you have a car service hereabouts?" She added as an afterthought. The man shook his head again.

"Freysburg has one, but it is three quarters of an hour away."

Rose thought about that for a minute. Truth be told she wasn't all that anxious to get back to London. She tried to picture the Doctor setting up in her flat or her parent's mansion, but couldn't come to grips with it. What would he do? Stay at home and knit while she went to work at Torchwood?

_A day or so to get my mind around it all would sure do me fine._

"What about lodging?" Rose finally asked the man behind the counter, who was starting to fidget and glance around her pointedly, even though there were no other customers in line. "Is there anywhere around here that we could get a couple rooms for the night?"

The man brightened at this.

"O'yes, we have a fine B&B just down the road called The Bay Inn. Moran Spozãnga is the owner, and she serves a wonderful breakfast."

Rose smiled.

"Ta, thanks mate."

She turned back to her mother who stood with her hands on her hips waiting, and noticed with some surprise that the Doctor was there as well, standing just a little behind Jackie, watching her with a curious expression on his face. She faced them both.

"We can't get a ride back to London before tomorrow, but there is a B&B down the road that we can stay in for the night."

Jackie's reaction was immediate.

"What'cha mean we can't get back till tomorrow. Don't they have Zepplin service?"

"Not till tomorrow, Mum." Rose held up her hands to forestall more argument. "It's just one more night."

Jackie Tyler huffed an exasperated breath, but seemed to surrender the point.

"Well, all I can say is that Inn had better do a decent cup of tea." She looked around disconsolately. "I could sure do with a cuppa right now. You suppose they have a café somewhere about?" She headed back toward the entrance of the store, leaving Rose and the Doctor behind. The Doctor was still looking at Rose in the same strange manner that she had noticed him doing before.

"What?" She finally asked, jerking him out of his considerations. "Am I glowing or something?" He seemed to consider that question a bit more carefully than she thought it warranted, but then shook his head.

"I was just wondering when it was that you learned to speak Bocmal with such a perfect accent?"

She stared at him blankly for a second. Seriously, the question made no sense to her.

"Are you joking?" She asked just to be sure. He shook his head.

"The TARDIS's translation protocol? Ring any bells?" She asked wondering if maybe the whole "he's-me-I'm-him" metacrisis situation wasn't beginning to show a major knowledge gap. The Doctor shook his head.

"Oh yeah, the TARDIS is a real peach about translating just about any lingo you happen to run into, but there is a tiny problem." He frowned at her, and she noticed his left hand stray up toward the pocket in his jacket, where the Doctor usually kept his sonic screwdriver, before he caught himself. Rose saw a fleeting grimace pass over his face before he stepped closer and bent to study her eyes carefully. The proximity was a bit close for comfort, and Rose found she was having trouble keeping her breathing steady, so she backed up.

"What's the problem then?" she asked, focusing on bringing her heartbeat back to normal. The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and stayed where he was.

"The TARDIS isn't in this universe, if it was I would feel it, so the translation protocol shouldn't be working." He gave her an apologetic look. "It most certainly shouldn't be allowing you to speak fluent Norwegian."

Rose shook her head trying to work out what he was saying, but at that moment they were both startled by a woman's anguished cry near the front of the store. As one they sprinted for the source of the sound.

"Mum?" Rose yelled, but as soon as she saw the prostrate figure in the aisle she realized she didn't need to fear. The woman, who had collapsed near a rack of marked down t-shirts, was more Rose's age than her mother's. She lay almost under the rack and several shirts had been pulled down with her, with one half covering her face so her eyes were concealed.

The Doctor reached the collapsed woman first, and crouched down over her, immediately ripping the t-shirt away from her face. His gasp of surprise propelled Rose to his side in an instant.

"Doctor, what's wrong?"

The Doctor didn't seem to even notice her presence or her question, as he clapped one of his long fingered hands down on the poor woman's eyes.

"That is not possible." She heard him mutter dazedly.

"Doctor!" She shook his shoulder lightly. "What's not possible? What's wrong with her?"

"My gracious! What has happened?" Several voiced were suddenly asking questions, as the few shoppers in the store congregated around the scene. Rose looked at the Doctor who, while still keeping a firm hand over the woman's eyes, was also carefully checking her vital signs, and knew that it was up to her to answer questions.

"It's all right, he's a doctor," She yelled over the surge of voices. The small crowd immediately turned to her, but before they could make another peep, she began speaking in her best 'I'm in control' voice.

"We need an ambulance at once, and everybody needs to move back and give her some air." The crowd dutifully scooted back, and a couple people pulled out their mobile phones. Rose nodded in satisfaction, and then refocused.

"Did anyone see what happened? Was there some sort of attack?" She looked around the circle of blank faces and shaking heads and was surprised to see the child she had spotted earlier on the dunes, in their midst. The little girl still wore her bright red cape over a strangely old-fashioned brown dress and with the hood up to partly concealed what Rose could now see as a mass of long, blond curls. She seemed to Rose to be trembling as she stood a little apart from the rest of the on-lookers, and she looked down at the collapsed woman with an expression of fear and horror.

_Why is no one seeing to her?_ Rose thought, feeling some indignation at the lack of parental supervision.

"Here, sweetheart, it's okay." Rose called to the little girl and made a move toward her, but instead of comforting the girl the actions seemed to do the opposite. She turned in a flash, and dashed away as if Rose was advancing on her with a knife rather than an empty, outstretched hand.

"Rose, where's that ambulance?" The Doctor's shout from behind her drew Rose's attention long enough to lose track of where the little girl went.

"It's coming!" Someone else shouted. Rose gritted her teeth and gave up on worrying about the little girl for the moment, so that she could go back to the Doctor.

The Doctor wasn't covering the woman's eyes anymore, but was looking into them intently. Rose felt an involuntary shudder run through her as she looked and saw for herself the collapsed woman's eyes. She jerked her own eyes away and back to the Doctor.

"Is she dead, Doctor?" Rose asked in a low voice. He shook his head.

"She's breathing at least," he amended. "Her brain though…" He shook his head again, this time in frustration. He moved his hands till they cupped the woman's face in a way that Rose remembered as his way of establishing a telepathic connection.

"You can still do that as a human?" Rose asked. He gave her an insulted look.

"Oi! Only part human." Then he shrugged. "At least I think it should still work." He focused on the woman, and Rose saw him close his eyes in concentration.

"My, but you've had some cowboys…Ooo, oww!" He jerked back his eyes springing open , and Rose saw him glance at his hands.

"Doctor, what is it?" Rose asked.

"Hot." He looked over at her with wide eyes. "Really hot."

"What does that mean?" Rose whispered. The Doctor looked around wildly for a moment, and then shook his head.

"I don't know."

They stared at each other for a moment.

The moment ended when an abrupt, professional voice sounded through the crowd, and a team of paramedics swept into the tiny circle around the collapsed woman.

"Move aside sir, ma'am." A tall, good looking man straight out of catalogue for men's ski wear, except that he was in a paramedics uniform, spoke authoritatively and ushered them away from where the rest of the team was now starting to work on the woman. "We'll handle it from here."

Rose and the Doctor backed up, watching as the team of paramedics loaded the woman and took her away. The crowd began to drift away and finally Rose let herself look at the Doctor's face. He stood, with his hands in his pockets staring blankly at his own feet.

Rose touched his hand with her own.

"You all right?"

He looked up as if noticing her presence for the first time.

"What? O'yeah, I'm fine…just fine." He took a deep breath in through his nose and glanced around. "I wonder if Jackie found that café . A cuppa sounds good right now, and maybe they'll have those little sandwiches with the meat paste." He set off for the front entrance, leaving Rose to scramble after him. She managed to catch up to him at the door, but Jackie was on the other side rushing toward them, and she made a b-line for Rose.

"Oh Lor, you're okay!" She grabbed Rose into a hug. "I heard the ambulance, and just about had a heart attack."

"We're okay Mum," Rose reassured, extricating herself from the hug. "Some woman in the shop had a…fit, of some kind. A seizure maybe?" She looked up to get some confirmation from the Doctor, but found that he wasn't there. A quick scan of the area showed him to be still walking down the street, hands deep in his pockets.

Rose stepped away from her mother, ignoring the concerned chatter she was making.

"It's okay Mum." She flashed Jackie a parting smile. "We'll meet you back at the Inn." Then she ran to catch up with the Doctor.

It wasn't actually easy to catch up to, and keep up with the Doctor when he was really stretching his legs, especially for one of Rose's height, but she'd mastered the trick of it pretty early in her travels with him. _Even he has to slow down when he talks._

"Where are we going then, Doctor?" She asked once she had managed to draw abreast of him. She was practically jogging, but he didn't seem to notice. He did, however, slow down a little to look over at her.

"Go?" He asked, his face grim. "Where could I possibly be going?"

Rose's eyebrows lifted in surprise.

"I don't know, but you're sure in a big hurry to get there."

He glanced over her and finally seemed to notice how fast he was walking. He sighed and slowed down.

"Should have known it would be a Thursday," He muttered. "I hate Thursdays. Boring Thursdays."

"Boring?" Rose exclaimed. "We just had a woman collapse with…with…" She struggled for the right words. "A hot brain, and eyes like something I've never seen before."

"Burn't." The Doctor supplied, his face still as closed as a locked door. "Her eyes looked burned, like a color photo that lies in the coals after the fire has passed; still recognizable until some breath of wind or touch comes and scatters it into ash."

He took a deep breath and shook his head.

"But it doesn't matter."

Rose looked up at him questioningly.

"Why doesn't it matter?"

They had come to what passed for an intersection in the small town, and the Doctor lingered near the curb, scuffing at the asphalt with his shoe.

"Doctor! Why doesn't it matter?"

He turned on her suddenly.

"Rose, look at me, and tell me what you see."

She frowned and looked at him.

"I dunno, the Doctor, I guess." She shrugged. "What am I supposed to see?"

He threw out his hands in a gesture of exasperation.

"Exactly! The Doctor, you guess." He huffed. "One heart, can't regenerate. No TARDIS, no screwdriver; sonic or otherwise. Stuck in a parallel world with no idea what to do next, because I am apparently too dangerous to be let out into the real universe." He took a deep breath and stared down the road blankly.

"I'm the madman with a blue box, who doesn't even have the blue box anymore."

Rose stared at the man in front of her and felt anger slowly build in her chest. It burned through her veins like a dam had broken inside her somewhere, until it finally burst through her lips.

"Sod this!" She saw him turn to her in surprise, but she ignored it. "If you were the real Doctor, the proper Doctor, you would know what mattered." She pointed a finger at him, aware that tears were making tracks of mascara down her face.

"And the real Doctor would never, ever, no matter what happened, give up!"

She was still angry but she couldn't think of anything else to say. She wiped at her eyes and squared her shoulders. Ignoring the Doctor's expression of chagrin and hurt, she turned to the right-hand street and started up it, not turning to look if he followed or not.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Rose tried not to sob as she walked; aware that she was still on a public street. Still, it was difficult with the familiar weight of grief pressing on her shoulders.

_Gone…He left me… again._ She thought, feeling it like a blade of fire in her chest. She gone so far; searched so hard, and for what? He had just left her _…like an old toy, or something._

But it was even worse than that, because now there was that man back there. The man who looked like the Doctor and felt like the Doctor, and said he loved her _…But he's not the Doctor! _

She shook her head, aware that she was losing the battle to control her emotions. Her tears and stifled sobs were drawing attention from passersby, and she couldn't stop them. Thankfully though, a glance up ahead showed her a possible solution. A little park with a hedge and a few deserted benches and swing sets stood just ahead. She gratefully ducked in at the entrance and chose a swing; sitting to face the hedge rather than the entrance.

This was the place for a nice, long blub, but, of course, now she was here her tears were starting to dry on her cheeks. Rose could feel a familiar numbness stealing into her mind. It had been her constant companion for weeks after the last time she had been to Bad Wolf Bay, a blank greyness that blanketed her emotions.

It had been Mickey who had pulled her out of it finally; taking her out and getting her as drunk as possible, only to spend the next morning, while her head was killing her with hangover, lecturing her on how disappointed the Doctor would be. Rose smiled at the memory, but the smile faded quickly.

_Now Mickey's gone to. I don't even have my best friend._

But she couldn't let the numbness back in. That was giving up, just like Mickey had said, and someone had to be the Doctor, even here in this parallel world.

She tried to rub the tears away from her eyes and felt around in her pocket, hoping for a tissue.

"Here, use this." A voice behind her said quietly, and a familiar, long fingered hand held a clean, white handkerchief out to her.

Rose froze for a moment, feeling her back stiffen, but the voice sounded so like him and she didn't have any more energy to be angry. She reached over and took the handkerchief.

She heard him sit down on the swing next to her and sigh, but didn't look over, as she tried to clean up.

"I'm sorry, Rose." She still didn't turn to him, despite the contrition in his tone.

"You are right, your Doctor would never give up."

Rose felt his hand touch her cheek, and instinctively turned to look at him, the Doctor. He smiled at her gently.

"But have you ever considered that maybe it was you who would never let me give up?"

Rose frowned.

"Don't be daft. I've seen what you do, all the people you've helped, even when it could kill you."

The Doctor shook his head.

"All those adventures. The people I supposedly helped…" He shook his head again. "I've been running, Rose. All my life since I was younger than you, running…and now I can't run anymore." He finished in almost a whisper, but seemed to recover quickly.

"But you Rose Tyler, stubborn, impossible Rose of Earth; you never give up." He smiled at her and shook his head. "You create a paradox in space and time to save your father. And even when I trick you into going home, you yank open the heart of the TARDIS and swallow the entire Time Vortex to come rescue me." He let out a choking little laugh.

"You shoot yourself through a dimension cannon, which, I don't even know what that is; to come and find me again." He looked at her with such a look of amazement mixed with chagrin, that she couldn't help a small smile forming on her own lips.

"You sure all that running wasn't from me?"

He burst out in a true belly laugh and she had to join him. After a moment he sobered again, and spun the swing so that he faced her.

"Rose Tyler, you find people, and ideas, and even places, and you hold onto them, even when you probably should let them go. And you take them with you…" He lapsed into silence, and Rose began to chew on her lip, unsure exactly what he was saying about her. Then he shrugged and nodded, and spoke again.

"…And you are right, I do know that what happened with the woman in the shop matters."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"What happened to the woman in the shop was an energy surge, but not just any energy, temporal energy." The Doctor looked at Rose, so she nodded to let him know she was following, as they walked down the street.

"Now, temporal energy is all around in the universe and we have quite a lot stored within us, which makes us targets for things like the Weeping Angels, but…"

"Wait a second, Doctor," Rose interrupted. "What's a Weeping Angel?"

He glanced at her briefly, with a slightly odd look in his eye, but then shrugged.

"Predators. They look like statues, but they move when you're not looking at them, and feed on your temporal energy by displacing you in time."

Rose made a face.

"Creepy."

"Very," the Doctor agreed. "But they aren't our problem." He paused and raised his face as if smelling the air, frowned, and then continued walking.

"Our problem is that while quite a few things can feed on temporal energy, hardly anything can shed it in the quantity that it took to burn that woman's brain up. And there's something else." He shook his head a looked up at the sky. "Something I can't quite put my finger on."

Rose was watching him, trying to keep up with everything he was telling her, but movement out of the corner of her eye drew her attention. A lorry on the road was swerving. It wasn't going terribly fast, but Rose felt her eyes widen in concern, and then fear as she glimpsed the driver through the windshield, slumped over the steering.

"Doctor, look out!" Rose shouted, grabbing onto his jacket sleeve and hauling him away from the curb where the vehicle was headed. A moment later the heavy truck bounced up onto walkway, and smashed into speed sign that had been only a foot or so from where Rose and the Doctor had been standing.

The adrenaline racing through Rose's system made her feel like her heart was going a million miles a minute, but she still managed to grin back at the Doctor when he gulped and observed.

"Blimey, that was close."

"O'gracious! Did I hurt anyone?" The man climbing out of the lorry was stout and dressed in a typical workman's coverall. He stumbled a step as he made to head around the front of his vehicle, but the Doctor caught his arm.

"Hold up there big fella; we're all fine, so let's see to you." He helped the man sit down on the ground and looked carefully into his eyes. "How are you feeling?"

"I wasn't drinking, I swear!" The man's eyes kept darting back to the wreck, and Rose could tell that he was starting to hyperventilate.

"It's okay," she tried to reassure him. "Just let the Doctor help you."

"Lor, this is bad!" the man put his head in his hands.

The Doctor tried again in a tone Rose recognized as his patient voice.

"Are you hurt? Do you have any pain?"

The man shook his head.

"No, no pain." He looked up from his hands and suddenly reached for Rose's shoulder as she knelt by him.

"I was just coming back from my night route," He stared at her. "I must have fallen asleep; I just got so tired when I hit the town limits."

Rose tried again to reassure him.

"It's all right, mate. Nobody got hurt, and I'm sure someone can fix your truck." She could feel him trembling through the hand he'd laid on her arm, so she was careful to move it slowly.

"Have you got a mobile? Is there someone you could call?"

The lorry driver swallowed quickly and then nodded, fumbling about in his pockets.

"My whole family; we've lived in this village forever."

"Cheers." Rose smiled, glad that the man seemed to be recovering some from his shock. "I'm Rose and this is the Doctor. So who are you?"

The man nodded at both of them in almost a normal greeting.

"Larry Wolf at your service." He glanced between her and the Doctor once as if seeing them for the first time. "You're not from around her then?"

They both shook their heads and Rose supplied

"I'm from London, actually."

While the Doctor piped in

"Just here visiting, really."

The man called Larry nodded, and then breathed a sigh as a short siren wail suddenly went up close by. He glanced back at the front end of the vehicle wrapped around the mangled street sign, and sighed again.

"That will be a fee then, in addition to the lorry repair." He glanced up at them again a shrugged philosophically. "Still, no one got hurt, and that's the main thing."

"Exactly." The Doctor smiled approval, and stood up to offer a helping hand.

"That is indeed the main thing, Mr. Larry Wolf."

The Doctor continued to hold the other man's hand as he stood up, ignoring his look of discomfort. To Rose it seemed that he was studying the hand itself rather closely, but then he released it suddenly and looked up at the sky.

"I say, Mr. Wolf," he said, smiling. "What do you think of this weather? Good, eh?"

Larry Wolf's expression was bewildered, but he shrugged.

"If you like rain, I suppose," He nodded wearily at the sky. "As dark as it is out, I expect they will be canceling the kids' football match this afternoon."

Rose felt her brow wrinkle in confusion, but the Doctor just nodded.

"Yes, of course." Rose watched the Doctor's expression turn inward for a moment before he shrugged again, and turned back to Larry.

"You've got this sorted, right? Because we've, kind of, gotta dash." He gave the lorry driver an apologetic smile. The man shrugged and looked over to where a police car was pulling up behind his truck.

"Yeah," he gave Rose and the Doctor a smile. "No need wasting you two's time as well with a lot of red tape."

"Good luck then." Rose called to him as he headed back toward the lorry, and he waved a parting hand at them.

"Any chance this was a coincidence?" Rose asked the Doctor while still smiling at Larry Wolf.

"Not much of one," He answered grimly.

She nodded.

"That's what I thought you'd say."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"The sky's clear Doctor," Rose dodged a fire hydrant and kept walking with the Doctor, who seemed to be in his thinking mode. "So why did that man just say that it was likely to rain?"

"Larry Wolf." The Doctor gave Rose a look that implied significance, but for the life of her she couldn't fathom what it was.

"What about 'Larry Wolf'?" She finally asked.

"Don't you think it just a bit too coincidental that there is an old family by the name of Wolf living in a village not half a mile from a place called Bad Wolf Bay. A village, I might add, which has a name that means "shelter in the forest." He held his hands out as if inviting her to look around. "Forest, anywhere?"

Rose frowned, looking around and then back to him.

"Well, there probably was forest back a long time ago when the place got its name." She shook her head. "And in any case, what do you think the names matter right now?"

"I'm not sure," the Doctor let out a frustrated breath. "But there is a theme here and I think it is part of what is going on with these incidents."

"So," Rose jumped in. "Larry had a hot brain then?" She stopped walking as she heard her own words, and shook her head. "That sounded a lot worse than it was supposed to."

The Doctor looked like he was trying to hold back a smile, but he shook his head.

"No, Larry the lorry driver had a completely opposite problem to what we encountered with the woman earlier. He was cold."

"Cold?' Rose asked.

"Yes," the Doctor nodded. "Cold, and shaking with exhaustion. I bet his blood sugar was low as well. I probably should have offered him a snack." The Doctor looked back up the road they had been walking as if contemplating going back.

"I'm sure the officer will give him a biscuit or something." Rose interjected quickly. "You were saying, cold…?" she prompted.

The Doctor looked between her and the lorry again, and then turned and resumed walking.

"Yes, cold, as in too little energy." The Doctor hooked a thumb back toward the accident they'd just left. "Mr. Larry Wolf there is at least a pint low on psychic energy, basically life force, and every bit as important as the red, runny stuff."

Rose shook her head at him.

"You're kidding." She raised her eyebrows. "Life force? As in 'Trust the Force, Luke' and all that?"

"Well, Lucas took a few liberties; couldn't sort his 'parsecs' from his 'light-years', for one." The Doctor sniffed, but then smiled again. "You've got to know Yoda was brilliant though." He hurried on.

"Anyway, we all know that it's the hearts, or heart, pumping blood that keeps the body alive. But what keeps us, the actual person, soul, I suppose, of us alive, is the life force." He got a glimpse of her still uncomprehending face and tried again. "It's a kind of emotional slash spiritual energy that keeps your essence alive."

Rose took a moment to digest that.

"So what you're saying is that some kind of "psychic vampire" like they talk about on the shows, stole his life force, and that's why he thinks it's cloudy out?"

The Doctor's entire body seemed to waver on the point of disagreeing with her, but he finally shrugged.

"Close enough. Except that 'psychic vampires' are real, not just for shows, and this wasn't their work." He stopped walking suddenly and Rose looked up. She'd mostly been focusing on her footing and her conversation with the Doctor, so she hadn't really noticed where they were actually walking. Now that she saw, it made sense.

"The hospital, of course."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"I'm afraid that you're going to have to be a bit more specific, Doctor Smith." The nurse at the reception desk looked tired. "We have quite a high case load today, and more than a few of them have come in by ambulance."

"Really." The Doctor looked past Rose, around the full waiting room. "So, is this normal then?"

The reception nurse scoffed.

"Not likely." She leaned forward over the desk and spoke quieter. "The EMTs are calling it an epidemic of accidents." She leaned back. "Seems more like a vitamin D deficiency to me, probably from the lack of sunlight today."

Rose felt her eyebrows go up, but the Doctor just nodded.

"Well, in that case I had probably better talk to the doctor on call; I'm sure they'll recognize the patient that I'm looking for."

The nurse shrugged and nodded.

"I'll buzz you in, and then you need to take the two next lefts to get to the main nurse's station. Someone there can take you to Doctor Waheed."

As they walked through the door and out of the reception area Rose snagged the little flip wallet from the Doctor's fingers and examined it.

"Psychic paper!" She looked up at his smug expression. "How did you get psychic paper?"

"Slipped the spare into my pocket back on the TARDIS," he smiled. "You never know when psychic paper might come in handy." His smile faded into an exasperated grimace. "Of course, if I'd known that I was going to be leaving the TARDIS permanently I probably would have tried for the sonic screwdriver instead, but that's life for you."

She handed him back the wallet and he slipped it into his pocket.

"If I'd know I would be leaving the TARDIS permanently, I never would have left the TARDIS." Rose felt her face suddenly flush as she realized just what she'd said, and who she'd said it to. "Umm…sorry. I didn't mean…" She gave up and ducked her head, hoping for the nurse's station to appear soon. Mercifully, it did.

Dr. Waheed turned out to be a slightly dapper, dark skinned man, who nodded gravely at the Doctor's description and then asked.

"Which one?"

"What? You mean there's more than one patient here with funny eyes?" Rose asked, incredulous. The medical doctor gave her a level look.

"There are two patients here matching the symptoms he described; I do not, however, find their condition at all amusing."

Rose stammered.

"Well, I didn't mean…"

The Doctor interrupted.

"We're going to have to examine both of the patients, if you don't mind."

The other man nodded, and ushered them toward a hallway. He spoke as they walked down it.

"I made my initial diagnoses of stroke for patient#1 based on brain wave scans, but with patient#2 I am more inclined to think brain tumor." He shrugged and stopped outside a door, pulling some sheets of flimsy plastic from an envelope. He passed the sheets over to the Doctor, who held them up and squinted at them one by one.

"Except," here the Doctor voice was pensive. "There is no sign of any tumor or growths of any kind on this brain scan."

"Which brings us back to square one, unfortunately." Dr. Waheed sighed. "Still, you are the specialist, Dr. Smith; maybe you will have more luck with your own diagnosis." With that he opened the door and stepped into a spare looking hospital room.

The room held two beds with a curtain pulled between them, Rose noticed as she took a look around.

"We decided to keep the patients together because…" Dr. Waheed hesitated, and Rose looked over to see a fleeting expression of discomfort disrupt his professional mask.

"Well, because of the ocular discoloration, actually." He sounded somewhat embarrassed. "It can be a bit disturbing to some people."

"You can say that again." Rose muttered, but she followed the Doctor to stand at the foot of the first bed. The bed's occupant was the same young woman who they had seen that morning, collapsed in the shop, only now her eyes were taped closed. Electrodes and wires seemed to be all over the woman, and an intravenous line snaked up to a pole beside the bed from a taped spot on her arm. Rose winced.

"Hard luck there." She turned to Dr. Waheed. "Why are her eyes taped shut?"

"Muscle spasm, seems to have frozen her eyelid muscles." He shrugged. "At least that's the best explanation I have so far for why they wouldn't close. In any case we didn't want her eyeballs drying out."

Rose winced again.

The Doctor looked over the various instruments by the bed. Rose had only a faint idea about most of the machines, but when he paid especial attention to one screen, she guessed that it was showing brain function.

"Anything new there?" She asked quietly. The Doctor was frowning at the screen, but he just shook his head. Rose shrugged and turned away, stepping over into the next, curtained of section of the hospital room.

It looked basically the same as the other side, except that the occupant of the bed was a much grizzled, older man, and there was someone else sitting in a chair by his side.

Rose felt her eyes widen as she spotted the little girl in the red hooded cape sitting by the bed. The hood was pulled back so Rose could see the long, blond curls, and also the expression of misery and exhaustion on the little face as it turned to look at her.

"It's you." Rose stammered in surprise before she could really think. The little girl jumped out of her chair with an expression of alarm, and Rose immediately felt bad.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." Instinctively, Rose held still as if the girl was an animal, cornered in the wild. She smiled to try and reassure her.

"Is that your granddad? "

The little girl stared at her a moment, but before she could speak the curtain rustled behind Rose and the Doctor's voice spoke questioningly.

"Rose?"

Rose turned her head.

"Over here, Doctor. I'm just talking to…" She turned back with a smile, hoping the little girl would give her name, but found that it was just herself and the comatose old gentleman on this side of the curtain.

"What?" She looked around. The little girl was nowhere to be seen.

"Rose?" She heard the Doctor's voice behind her, sounding concerned as she ducked down to look under the hospital bed.

"She was right here!" Rose hopped up with a frustrated growl to see the Doctor giving her an extremely cautious expression.

"And…by her you would be meaning who exactly?" He prompted.

"The little girl," Rose glanced around again, pushing her hair away from her face. "There was this little girl in here just a moment ago, but she vanished." Belatedly Rose glanced past the Doctor to see if the little medical doctor was also listening, but she didn't see him.

"Dr. Waheed had to see to his other patients." The Doctor explained as he moved further into the room. "What's this about a vanishing girl?"

Rose gestured helplessly.

"There was a little girl with blond hair standing just there, but I took my eyes off of her for just half a second, and she's gone."

The Doctor moved beside the bed where the patient still lay, motionless, and put his hand out.

"Was it here?"

Rose shook her head.

"No, it was right in front of the chair."

The Doctor passed his hand in the air around and over the chair and frowned.

"There's something…" his frown deepened. "Very faint, and…complicated."

"Complicated?" Rose asked.

The Doctor grimaced at her.

"I want my sonic screwdriver." He glanced at the monitors by the bedside.

"Hello, what's this?" He leaned in closer. Rose hurried forward.

"What is it Doctor?"

As far as Rose could tell the monitors were generating random numbers and squiggles, but even she could see that the activity on this monitors for the old man were different than what was going on with the woman in the bed next-door.

"He isn't as bad." The Doctor stated, squinting at the screens. He shook his head. "Let's try this again." He put his hands on the old man's face, and his expression went slightly vacant. Rose watched anxiously, but other than a few twinges of discomfort passing over his face, he seemed fine. Finally, he pulled back.

"Extraordinary," He shook his head again, and carefully lifted the man's closed eyelids to look at his eyes for a moment. "It's the same thing, a surge of temporal energy, just like the woman over there." He jerked his head toward the curtain. "But, somehow, this fellow escaped the worst of it."

Rose frowned.

"What do you mean? Like he jerked his finger out of the light socket before he could get more than a little jolt, or something?"

The Doctor shrugged.

"Maybe… We don't know what's causing all this, so it might work like that."

He rubbed absently at the back of his head.

"So, this girl," he asked, refocusing on Rose. "There's no way she could have slipped out past us…"

"The window's locked," Rose confirmed.

"And I would have seen her if she'd gone for the door." The Doctor smiled suddenly. "Which means…"

"She's not just a little girl." Rose supplied, her own tone grim. "And, what's more I saw her before at the shop when that woman over there collapsed."

The Doctor's smile widened.

"Oh, I have missed you Rose Tyler." He turned to get a good look at the whole room, while Rose took a moment to calm the sharp spike in her heart rate.  
"We must be looking at some kind of energy creature, probably leaked through the rift before it closed." His voice was fast, like it usually was when he was thinking out loud, and Rose struggled to keep up.

"But why would it be zapping people with temporal energy, and at the same time draining them of psychic energy?" The Doctor stared at her.

"Maybe it's like the Gelf," she struggled. "Maybe, it needs something…" She gave up and looked at him helplessly. He nodded approvingly.

"As good a theory as any." Rose smiled at his words, but he continued on, now heading for the door. "The problem is all we have is theories, and a bunch of pieces that don't match."

"But that's the fun of it, isn't it Doctor?" Rose stood in place and waited until the Doctor swung back to look at her. He stared at her a second, as if searching her face for something and then grinned, bounding back over to her and catching her in a hug.

"Yes," He laughed. "Yes, Rose Tyler, that is the fun of it."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"Well, this is nice of you two to finally show up." Jackie Tyler greeted them with hands on hips in the front room of the cozy looking B&B, as Rose and the Doctor came in. Rose flopped onto an easy chair and groaned with relief to be sitting. Her mother rounded on the Doctor.

"You," she shook a finger at him. "I swear, you could find trouble in your sleep."

"He has." Rose volunteered, stretching her legs out in front of her and rotating her ankles.

"Oi!" The doctor gave her a look of betrayal, which she laughed at.

"Well, you have. Remember that time on Vandor 5?'

He blew her a raspberry.

"I told you; I wasn't asleep, I was just resting my eyes."

She held her hands up in mock surrender.

"As you like."

Jackie glared at the both of them.

"A couple of days, that's all I ask. A couple of days without the lot of you running off into some deadly danger." She folded her arms and looked between them.

"Fine then, so where have you been all day?"

Rose sat up and shrugged.

"Here and there." She saw her mother's unsatisfied look and hurried on. "We just had to find a couple things to help us with a little problem we found." She smiled. "It's really no big deal, Mum."

Jackie narrowed her eyes.

"What sort of things were you needing for this "little problem"?" Rose rolled her eyes at her mother's use of air quotes, but the Doctor spoke up.

"Well, the tuning fork took some doing." He grinned and held the little instrument up. "A-minor, and we ended up having to rescue an old lady's cat to get it... Snowball…" He grimaced, and Rose tried to make a sympathetic face.

"He was really rather nice; he just doesn't like blokes."

Jackie sighed.

"And the rest of the stuff in the bag?"

"Ingredients for growing Titium crystals, so we can triangulate an energy signature," The Doctor supplied helpfully.

Rose watched her mother relax slightly, though her expression remained disapproving as she turned her gaze to focus on her.

"Well, you could at least have answered your phone. Here I was worried sick."

That set Rose back a moment. She reached for her pocket with a frown.

"I didn't hear it ring or anything." Rose muttered, and noticed in her periphery that the Doctor was easing out of the room.

"I'll just go and set up the growth medium, shall I." His smile said that he was glad to be out of Jacqueline Tyler's crosshairs, and Rose couldn't blame him for that. She held up her phone and frowned at it.

"It's dead?"

"Needs charging, I expect." Jackie's tone suggested that she was willing to be mollified with that explanation, but Rose still stared at her mobile.

"It had a full charge this morning; I topped it off on the TARDIS."

Her mother shrugged.

"Well, you can hardly expect something made in China to be exactly compatible with a charger from outer space, it's probably the wrong voltage or something." She sat down on the couch next Rose's easy chair and picked up a mug of tea from the table in front of her.

"Like when my friend Flo went on holiday in America, she burned out her hairdryer because the voltage was all wrong. Had to get one of those adapter things."

Rose shook her head, but decided it wasn't worth trying to explain how the TARDIS managed to charge phones without even a plug cord. Besides, if she admitted it to herself, she really had no idea how the TARDIS did it, or even what it used for regular electricity, never mind voltage. She pocketed the phone and changed the subject.

"So, how are Dad and Tony doing without you?"

Rose let her mind wander as her mother launched into a full retelling of some kitchen disaster that her little brother had perpetrated while her parallel-world father was taking a call in the other room. She glanced around the sitting room which was large and heavy beamed. It was obviously a very old house. Probably, an old family house that had been built onto and remodeled far too many times for there even to be records.

The current owners evidently treasured the antiquity because instead of molding or trim, Rose could see massive boards of age polished wood girding the ceiling, and a closer look at the fireplace showed it to be meticulously fitted local stone. A few pictures hung on the walls, mostly paintings of landscapes, and Rose guessed them to be of local spots. One in particular drew her attention. Her eyes kept returning to it as her mother talked; a colorful, if not particularly masterful rendition of sea dunes, with the grass long and wind tousled. There was an extra patch of color on the painting; a vivid red that Rose couldn't quite make out from where she sat.

Forgetting that she was supposed to be listening to Jackie's story, she stood up.

"Well, never mind me then." Rose heard Jackie gripe behind her, but she was too intent on the painting to pay attention.

The splash of red resolved itself within a few feet of the painting into a familiar hooded cape with a little girl, blond hair flying in the sea breeze, wearing it as she skipped through the tall grass. A scene, in fact, practically identical to the one Rose had seen herself that very morning.

Rose felt her mouth drop open for a moment before she got a grip on herself.

_Must be some kind of…local thing… kids wearing red hoods. _She thought, trying not to acknowledge how ridiculous that sounded.

"Where's the date on this?" She muttered to herself, grabbing the painting from the wall.

"Well, you can see it with the artist's signature in the corner, can't you." Jackie sounded exasperated, breaking into Rose's mental scrambling.

"1943," she read off, and Rose could tell that she was shrugging. "What's it matter?"

Rose shook her head, trying to sort through her thoughts.

"I need to show this to the Doctor."

Her mother protested.

"You can't just take other people's things down and cart them around." She gave Rose a very admonishing look. "I didn't raise you like that."

Rose gritted her teeth briefly and then sighed.

"Fine, we'll need to ask the lady, Moran whats'er-name about the painting anyway."

She set the painting back on the wall. Her mother had her arms folded again, but more in confusion now than anger.

"I don't get what's so important about a painting; it's just a ruddy landscape?"

Rose ignored the question.

"Come on, Mum, do you know where the lady the is, the one who owns the house?" Jackie shrugged.

"She was in the kitchen when I went looking for my tea." She pointed toward a doorway at the end of the room, and followed Rose as she headed toward it. "Just follow the smell of baking, that's what I did."

Rose could indeed smell baking once she got into the hallway. A heavenly, yeasty aroma with hints of fruit thrown in. Rose suddenly remembered that tea was hours back, and all she had had all day was handful of chips in the hospital cafeteria and a bottle of pop. Her stomach clenched in sudden realization of hunger. She gave it a mental scolding and headed down the hallway.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 9

"I'm sorry!" The voice of the little girl was high-pitched and panicked and she looked between Rose and Moran, who stood frozen with her flour covered hands clasped near her chest. "Help me! Please help me!." Little hands reached out pleadingly. "He's in the garden."

Then the little girl vanished.

Rose looked at Moran but she was already in motion, stripping her hairnet off and racing, with surprising speed for someone her age, toward a door at the back of the kitchen. After a moment's hesitation, Rose sped after her.

The door, as Rose expected, led out the back of the kitchen into a large, and obviously quite well tended, garden. Vegetable, fruit, and flower plants grew all around in neat, mulched beds, with paths of crushed shells wandering between them.

"Which way?" Rose wondered aloud as she and Moran stood, unsure, outside the kitchen door. A flash of red to the right was enough for Rose to go on. She darted after it, hearing the B&B owner's footsteps crunching behind.

The paths wound around a bit, but Rose followed the red, until she saw the heap in the path. Immediately, Rose felt dread rise in her throat. Even in the dim light cast by the setting sun it was obvious what the muddle in the middle of the path was; a boy and his bicycle.

A moan from a throat nearby made Rose turn to see Moran, hands outstretched, lurch forward. Rose caught her.

"Wait!" holding on to the older woman was surprisingly difficult. "Moran, wait it might not be safe yet."

"Segun!" The woman called, and continued to struggle in Rose's grip. "That's my grandson, let me go!" There really was no way of holding her, she struggled out of Rose's grasp and to the side of the collapsed boy. Rose knelt with her and tried to get a look at his eyes, her hand hovering, ready to cover them if needed. To her relief, the boy's eyes, while wide open and staring, were not burnt looking.

"I didn't touch him, I promise." The little girl's voice spoke again, and Rose looked to see her standing further down the path with her red cloak bunched up in her fists, near her face. Her eyes were wide and tears ran from them, down her face.

"We were just talking, and it happened again."

Her nose was even red, Rose noted in some part of her mind where a war was being waged over feeling compassion for an obviously upset child or horror at the kind of creature who could burn through a human's mind without even touching them.

The Doctor's voice, closely followed by her mother's voice, distracted Rose, and she turned to look back up the path.

"Doctor, we're over here." She shouted, hoping he would be able to tell the direction of her voice. She looked back down the path, on the point of asking the little girl to be a guide for the Doctor, but she was vanished again.

"No!" Rose stood up and looked around wildly. "No, come back…little girl." She looked down at Moran. "Moran, what do you call her? What's her name?" The other woman didn't look up, so Rose shook her shoulder. "Moran, we have to find out what she is so we can fix this." Moran looked at her blankly.

"Name, quickly!" Rose prompted. The other woman shook her head.

"We always just call her the Little Red Hood."

Rose stifled a growl of frustration, and tried calling again.

"Little Red Hood, come back." She turned in a full circuit, hoping to catch a glimpse of red. "We aren't angry with you, honest. I just want to help you."

There was no response, and no flashes of red, but within a few moments Rose did see, to her relief, the Doctor's long form round a bend in the path at full speed, with her mother close behind. The Doctor's convers actually made little sprays of shell's as he slowed down to a stop by the huddle in the path. She saw him give her a quick up and down inspection before kneeling by the boy and his grandmother and taking out his tuning fork.

With a grim look, the Doctor struck the tuning fork lightly with his finger and ran it over the boy's prone figure, gently, but firmly, pushing his grandmother out of the way.

"What's wrong with him then?" Rose heard her mother's voice, but just shook her head. She was watching the Doctor's face, reading the emotions play over it.

_ Something's different this time._

"The residual energy level is much lower." The Doctor spoke almost as if he'd heard her thoughts.

"Can you help him, Doctor?" The B&B owner held her grandson's head cradled in her lap, and her tears fell on his face. The Doctor looked over at her and swallowed.

"I can try." He shifted, and took a deep breath. "You'll have to move back though." The old lady complied reluctantly, but Rose and her mother were able to help her up. Rose went over to kneel opposite the Doctor so she could watch his face.

"What are you going to do?"

He glanced up at her.

"There's not a whole lot of temporal energy here, but it's going to do more damage the longer it's trapped in his consciousness."

"So, you're going to try and let it out?" Rose hazarded.

"By absorbing it first, and then channeling it out." He agreed.

Rose gave him a sharp look.

"Is that safe?" He didn't answer or meet her eyes, so she asked again. "Doctor, is it safe for you to do this?"

He met her eyes with a glare.

"I don't know!" He continued in a harsh whisper. "In my Time Lord body it would be no problem, but I don't know how much this human body can withstand."

He moved his hands to hold the boy's face as Rose's thoughts raced. He closed his eyes and Rose could see his whole body immediately tense while his breathing became short gasps. Rose looked around wildly, trying to think of what to do.

_I can't lose him now, again…like this!_

The Doctor's voice came out in what sounded like a hiss of pain.

"It's too much. I can't release it in one go."

"Let him go then, Doctor." Rose pleaded, feeling panic rise before she could choke it back down.

"No," he shook his head with eyes still shut. "It will be too late for him soon." He spoke through gritted teeth. "I just have to find some way to channel it out quicker."

A faint haze, or glow, of gold seemed to have coalesced around the Doctor's body. It rose gently like steam into the air as Rose watched.

A groan of pain wracked through the Doctor's whole frame and Rose bit her lip. She was out of ideas. She didn't know what to do…and the man she loved was dying right in front of her.

She acted on instinct.

Leaning forward in a barely controlled lunge, Rose caught the Doctor's face in both hands and held it there as she placed her lips onto his.

Contact was instant, as was the pain, but it was somehow removed. Rose felt a huge… something… rushing through her as if she was a like a wicker basket and it was like water. _Hot water._ She amended in some far off, removed part of her mind. It filled her with a blistering, scorching memory of pain, but then it was over, and she opened her eyes. The Doctor's brown eyes were wide, and looking directly into hers.

"How did you do that?" He breathed.

Rose dropped her hands from his face to his shoulders and leaned on him, shaking her head, as he moved to grip her arms and steady her. Below them the boy on the ground stirred.

"Segun!"

Moran Spozanga was there in an instant, hands reaching, pulling the boy into her arms as he groaned.

"Segun, wake up sweetheart. Granny's got you."

The boy, who looked to be around nine, groaned again.

"Doctor, is he all right now?" The question made Rose look up. She felt like her head weighed at least a couple hundred, aching pounds, but she turned it to look at the boy. His eyes were closed, indeed clenched shut, and his body seemed to have curled in on itself, but for some reason that gave Rose a feeling of comfort. She sat back and let go of the Doctor. He gave her an assessing look and then reached over to the boy again, this time with his tuning fork in hand.

"The excess temporal energy seems to be gone, but it likely caused some trauma." The Doctor sighed wearily. "Let's get him inside, and I'll see what I can do."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"I'm sorry!" The voice of the little girl was high-pitched and panicked and she looked between Rose and Moran, who stood frozen with her flour covered hands clasped near her chest. "Help me! Please help me!." Little hands reached out pleadingly. "He's in the garden."

Then the little girl vanished.

Rose looked at Moran but she was already in motion, stripping her hairnet off and racing, with surprising speed for someone her age, toward a door at the back of the kitchen. After a moment's hesitation, Rose sped after her.

The door, as Rose expected, led out the back of the kitchen into a large, and obviously quite well tended, garden. Vegetable, fruit, and flower plants grew all around in neat, mulched beds, with paths of crushed shells wandering between them.

"Which way?" Rose wondered aloud as she and Moran stood, unsure, outside the kitchen door. A flash of red to the right was enough for Rose to go on. She darted after it, hearing the B&B owner's footsteps crunching behind.

The paths wound around a bit, but Rose followed the red, until she saw the heap in the path. Immediately, Rose felt dread rise in her throat. Even in the dim light cast by the setting sun it was obvious what the muddle in the middle of the path was; a boy and his bicycle.

A moan from a throat nearby made Rose turn to see Moran, hands outstretched, lurch forward. Rose caught her.

"Wait!" holding on to the older woman was surprisingly difficult. "Moran, wait it might not be safe yet."

"Segun!" The woman called, and continued to struggle in Rose's grip. "That's my grandson, let me go!" There really was no way of holding her, she struggled out of Rose's grasp and to the side of the collapsed boy. Rose knelt with her and tried to get a look at his eyes, her hand hovering, ready to cover them if needed. To her relief, the boy's eyes, while wide open and staring, were not burnt looking.

"I didn't touch him, I promise." The little girl's voice spoke again, and Rose looked to see her standing further down the path with her red cloak bunched up in her fists, near her face. Her eyes were wide and tears ran from them, down her face.

"We were just talking, and it happened again."

Her nose was even red, Rose noted in some part of her mind where a war was being waged over feeling compassion for an obviously upset child or horror at the kind of creature who could burn through a human's mind without even touching them.

The Doctor's voice, closely followed by her mother's voice, distracted Rose, and she turned to look back up the path.

"Doctor, we're over here." She shouted, hoping he would be able to tell the direction of her voice. She looked back down the path, on the point of asking the little girl to be a guide for the Doctor, but she was vanished again.

"No!" Rose stood up and looked around wildly. "No, come back…little girl." She looked down at Moran. "Moran, what do you call her? What's her name?" The other woman didn't look up, so Rose shook her shoulder. "Moran, we have to find out what she is so we can fix this." Moran looked at her blankly.

"Name, quickly!" Rose prompted. The other woman shook her head.

"We always just call her the Little Red Hood."

Rose stifled a growl of frustration, and tried calling again.

"Little Red Hood, come back." She turned in a full circuit, hoping to catch a glimpse of red. "We aren't angry with you, honest. I just want to help you."

There was no response, and no flashes of red, but within a few moments Rose did see, to her relief, the Doctor's long form round a bend in the path at full speed, with her mother close behind. The Doctor's convers actually made little sprays of shell's as he slowed down to a stop by the huddle in the path. She saw him give her a quick up and down inspection before kneeling by the boy and his grandmother and taking out his tuning fork.

With a grim look, the Doctor struck the tuning fork lightly with his finger and ran it over the boy's prone figure, gently, but firmly, pushing his grandmother out of the way.

"What's wrong with him then?" Rose heard her mother's voice, but just shook her head. She was watching the Doctor's face, reading the emotions play over it.

_ Something's different this time._

"The residual energy level is much lower." The Doctor spoke almost as if he'd heard her thoughts.

"Can you help him, Doctor?" The B&B owner held her grandson's head cradled in her lap, and her tears fell on his face. The Doctor looked over at her and swallowed.

"I can try." He shifted, and took a deep breath. "You'll have to move back though." The old lady complied reluctantly, but Rose and her mother were able to help her up. Rose went over to kneel opposite the Doctor so she could watch his face.

"What are you going to do?"

He glanced up at her.

"There's not a whole lot of temporal energy here, but it's going to do more damage the longer it's trapped in his consciousness."

"So, you're going to try and let it out?" Rose hazarded.

"By absorbing it first, and then channeling it out." He agreed.

Rose gave him a sharp look.

"Is that safe?" He didn't answer or meet her eyes, so she asked again. "Doctor, is it safe for you to do this?"

He met her eyes with a glare.

"I don't know!" He continued in a harsh whisper. "In my Time Lord body it would be no problem, but I don't know how much this human body can withstand."

He moved his hands to hold the boy's face as Rose's thoughts raced. He closed his eyes and Rose could see his whole body immediately tense while his breathing became short gasps. Rose looked around wildly, trying to think of what to do.

_I can't lose him now, again…like this!_

The Doctor's voice came out in what sounded like a hiss of pain.

"It's too much. I can't release it in one go."

"Let him go then, Doctor." Rose pleaded, feeling panic rise before she could choke it back down.

"No," he shook his head with eyes still shut. "It will be too late for him soon." He spoke through gritted teeth. "I just have to find some way to channel it out quicker."

A faint haze, or glow, of gold seemed to have coalesced around the Doctor's body. It rose gently like steam into the air as Rose watched.

A groan of pain wracked through the Doctor's whole frame and Rose bit her lip. She was out of ideas. She didn't know what to do…and the man she loved was dying right in front of her.

She acted on instinct.

Leaning forward in a barely controlled lunge, Rose caught the Doctor's face in both hands and held it there as she placed her lips onto his.

Contact was instant, as was the pain, but it was somehow removed. Rose felt a huge… something… rushing through her as if she was a like a wicker basket and it was like water. _Hot water._ She amended in some far off, removed part of her mind. It filled her with a blistering, scorching memory of pain, but then it was over, and she opened her eyes. The Doctor's brown eyes were wide, and looking directly into hers.

"How did you do that?" He breathed.

Rose dropped her hands from his face to his shoulders and leaned on him, shaking her head, as he moved to grip her arms and steady her. Below them the boy on the ground stirred.

"Segun!"

Moran Spozanga was there in an instant, hands reaching, pulling the boy into her arms as he groaned.

"Segun, wake up sweetheart. Granny's got you."

The boy, who looked to be around nine, groaned again.

"Doctor, is he all right now?" The question made Rose look up. She felt like her head weighed at least a couple hundred, aching pounds, but she turned it to look at the boy. His eyes were closed, indeed clenched shut, and his body seemed to have curled in on itself, but for some reason that gave Rose a feeling of comfort. She sat back and let go of the Doctor. He gave her an assessing look and then reached over to the boy again, this time with his tuning fork in hand.

"The excess temporal energy seems to be gone, but it likely caused some trauma." The Doctor sighed wearily. "Let's get him inside, and I'll see what I can do."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

It ended up being the Doctor who carried the boy, Segun, up into the house, to a room that Moran showed them, with planet models hanging from the ceiling and a bed covered in a duvet printed with Star Wars characters.

Rose leaned on her mother, who had her arm around her waist and was uncharacteristically quiet, while they followed behind the Doctor and the B&B owner. Still, Rose had to ask.

"So, what were you shouting about anyway?"

Jackie gave her an incredulous look.

"Well, I saw it, didn't I," she nodded back toward the way they had come. "I was looking out the window at the garden, and the kid was messing about on his bike, and then all of a sudden there was this flash and he was on the ground." She shrugged. "So, I shouted."

"Wasn't there anyone else with him?" Rose wondered, recalling the Little Red Hood's words.

Jackie shrugged.

"Not that I could see." Her forehead furrowed in thought. "Though, I did think it a bit strange, 'cause he kept looking over and everything, like he was talking to somebody." She shrugged again.

"Kids though, a lot of them have imaginary friends. You had one when you were little."

"Really?" asked Rose, momentarily distracted.

Her mother looked over with a smile.

"O'yeah, I think it must have been a pirate or something." Her gaze became far away as she seemed to be looking back into old memories. "I thought it was going to drive me barmy, how you said "Aye, aye, Captain" all the time."

Rose shot a look ahead at the Doctor, and was sure that she saw his stride falter for a moment, but he didn't glance back.

Arrival at the boy's room pushed more questions, reluctantly, to the back of Rose's mind.

…_But I never did ask for an explanation about how Jack was still alive, and Ill want to know that as soon as we've sorted all this out, Doctor. _She promised herself.

The Doctor laid the boy down in his bed gently and placed his hand on the smaller face.

"Let me just bring him round slowly." He murmured as the rest of them waited silently. Moments ticked by slowly as they all watched the Doctor and the boy.

Nothing seemed to be happening for quite some time, and then between one breath and the next, the boy relaxed and seemed to give a great sigh. Then his eyes flickered open.

The sob of relief from his grandma was very loud in the room, and the boy's eyes moved to focus on her, though Rose thought he looked muzzy, as if not quite awake yet.

"Give him a moment." The Doctor murmured, carefully straightening and looking over at Moran. She looked a right mess, with flour and tears all smeared together on her face, and she was still wearing her flowered apron, but it was obvious that nothing was going to distract her till she was assured of her grandson's safety. The Doctor spoke quickly and quietly.

"I've tried to isolate and lock down the damaged portions of his mind, which means that he probably won't remember most of this day. Don't try to remind him of it." He issued the order with emphasis. Rose saw Moran nod slowly, despite an expression of confusion.

"He'll probably feel a bit sick and feverish, but he should get over it soon. The young tend to recover fast, but you need to get me if anything seems to be going wrong with him."

Moran gave him a sharp look.

"What kind of things would be "going wrong"?"

The Doctor shook his head.

"Just anything, anything that seems unusual." He shrugged "I can't get any more specific because I don't know."

The small voice of the boy on the bed interrupted the conversation.

"Granny?" He called, and Moran rushed instantly to his side. The Doctor backed away.

"It's okay, sweets, Granny is here." She brushed his hair back, and felt his forehead.

"I don't feel good." The boy stated in a kind of half-asleep mumble.

"Granny will look after you till you feel all better" the older woman promised, and continued to stroke the boy's forehead till he relaxed into apparent sleep.

The Doctor spoke up quietly, at last.

"Ma'am, we need to talk about your local spirit."

"The Little Red Hood." Moran Spozanga murmured. "I cannot see how she could do this, she's a good spirit and always has been."

"A bit more than a story then?" The Doctor regarded her with a look of satisfaction, but the old woman snorted quietly.

"My family has lived in this Cove since before the Viking times, Doctor. There isn't a rock or a shrub within twenty miles of this place that I don't know like the back of my hand." Absently she reached over and began untying her grandson's shoelaces and pulling off his shoes.

"I played hide and seek with the Little Red Hood when I was barely a toddler, and my children and grandchildren played with her." She shrugged and looked directly at the Doctor.

"My great-great-great grandfather believed that the markings that the Little Red Hood made on stones, like the one you showed me, were letters from some kind of alphabet, but he could never decipher them because she herself didn't seem to know what they said."

"They don't really say anything, at least the ones on that stone." The Doctor admitted. "They're just random letters, actually."

"But, why would she start hurting us now, after all this time?" Moran asked, obviously not much interested in the mystery of the letters.

"I don't think that she meant to do any harm." Rose interjected. She felt a bit steadier now, and though her head still ached, at least it didn't feel like it was going to wobble off her shoulders. She stepped away from her mother's support, toward the Doctor.

"Remember, she kept saying sorry, and how she didn't mean it."

Moran looked doubtful and shrugged, but the Doctor tapped his teeth with the tuning fork.

"It's got to have something to do with the rift closing." He observed.

"But it closed before." Rose countered. "If it's so old, how come it didn't affect it before?"

The Doctor gave her a sour look.

"I didn't say that it was a great theory."

Jackie's voice broke into the conversation.

"Oi, that's not half rude, that is!" She looked at them all reproachfully. "What did you stop speaking English for?"

Rose looked at the Doctor and then her mother again in bewilderment.

"What do you mean? When did we stop speaking English?" She asked.

"Just now." Jackie insisted.

Rose was just going to open her mouth and ask her mother if she was crazy, but the Doctor coughed meaningfully.

"Sorry, Jackie" He apologized. "We just got a bit carried away, I think."

Jackie Tyler nodded her acceptance of the apology, but she wasn't finished talking.

"Well, I think it's a bit daft to go on talking about why it's making trouble, when what we really need to do is find it before it does any more harm." She looked at Moran Spozanga. "You say you know the place so well, so were does whatever-it-is live?"

"Mum, it doesn't have an actual body." Rose sighed. "She doesn't have to live anywhere."

"But she does." Moran spoke quietly, and her face looked as if she half wished she could take back her own words.

"Moran, you know how important this is. Lives are at stake." The Doctor encouraged quietly. She swallowed and nodded.

"The painted cave." The older woman looked up and around at their faces. "That is what we have always called it, and the Little Red Hood lives there."

"What do you mean lives there? she's a spirit…thing?" Rose asked, confused.

Moran shrugged.

"We always know that we can find her there." She glanced around as if searching for words. "It's part of her somehow."

"Can you take us to this cave?" The Doctor asked grimly.

Moran hesitated again, but finally nodded.

"Not tonight though." She added. "The path is very rough, and I need to look after my grandson."

The Doctor looked on the point of arguing, but sighed instead and nodded.

"First light then?"

She nodded.

Rose couldn't help feeling a bit relieved that they wouldn't be hiking back to some cave in the dark. She was beyond tired, and not sure how far she would make it if she didn't collapse into a bed soon.

"Do you think you can walk, Rose?" The Doctor's voice startled her out of, what she guessed was a light doze. She jerked her head up to look at him and winced as her headache dealt her skull a sharp rap of reprimand. He stood next to her, looking down with concern.

"I'm fine," she assured him, but somehow the mushy words that actually came out of her lips didn't seem to do the trick. He slipped his arms around her waist and under her knees and picked her up.

"You're exhausted; now wrap your arms around my neck and lay still." He ordered in response to her noise of protest.

It was actually nice to just lay there. Rose did as she was told, and a few moments later she was half asleep again.

Rose didn't know how much time passed, but she eventually became aware of the Doctor putting her down on a soft surface that could only be a mattress. He straightened her legs and pulled off her shoes, and was just pulling the blanket up when she tried speaking again.

Rose knew, in some part of her mind, that she was asleep, but just a bit of her wasn't ready to abandon the mystery yet.

"Doctor, do you suppose," she mumbled as he tucked the cover around her shoulders. "Could the Little Red Hood be a Time Lord ghost?"

His hand halted a moment on her shoulder, and, without thinking, she moved her own hand up to grab it.

"I don't know, Rose." He sighed. "There was a time that I would have said it was impossible, but now…" She felt him shrug and leave the sentence unfinished. She yawned.

"Just a thought." Then she added. "Good night Doctor."

Rose fell asleep before she could hear him respond, and before she could realize that she hadn't let go of his hand.

Rose Tyler sleeping. It was a magical thing to just watch the steady pulse at the base of her neck, and the slight movement of her eyelids as her brain played dreams for her. Her mouth fell slightly open in her sleep and a small, whistling snore emerged, which made the Doctor smile even more. He looked at her hand, still gripping his and felt absolutely no inclination to pull away. Instead he glanced around and located a chair, a rocking chair no less, not too far away in the corner of the neat, yellow bedroom. With a foot stretched out, and a little bit of effort, he managed to pull the chair over.

He sighed as he settled into the chair, still holding her hand.

_I wonder if I will actually sleep in this body?_ Was his last complete thought before a haze of exhaustion washed over him and swept him away to the land of slumber.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"So this painted cave…I guess it has cave paintings….So how long have they been here?" Rose asked Moran, as they carefully maneuvered the boulder strewn ravine that ran down to the Bad Wolf Bay and the cave.

The morning sunlight was barely bright enough to illuminate the path, but Rose still felt completely refreshed from her hours of sleep. Somehow, waking up to the sight of the Doctor snoring gently in a rocking chair next to her had made the early hour not only bearable, but even a bit delightful.

Himself was intent on his tuning fork now; tapping it on stones and waving it in the air, so that he looked quite mad. She assumed he had some good purpose for it all.

Casting a slightly worried look at the Doctor, the older woman, who was breathing a little heavier, shook her head at Rose.

"No one knows how old the pictures in the outer cave are. They have been here since the dawn of time, my old Grandmother used to say. At least they and the Little Red Hood have been here since there have been people in this Cove."

"Haven't there been scientists or anything, out to study them?" Wondered Rose.

Moran shook her head even more vigorously.

"Oh no, we've never been for letting strangers go poking and disturbing our Little Red Hood. If it wasn't for all the trouble…"She faltered for a moment "well, you lot wouldn't have been shown either."

Rose tried to smile reassurance at the older woman.

"You're doing the right thing Moran, the Doctor really can help."

The old, Norwegian woman shrugged and turned away, pointing with a gnarled finger.

"It's right over here."

The cave was low for Rose, and the Doctor had to do a kind of crab scuttle that looked truly ridiculous, to get in. Rose was glad that she'd been able to talk her mother out of coming, since she was definitely claustrophobic, and caves of any sort were not her cup of tea. Still, after only a few yards the rock walls opened up into a larger cavern where they could stand straight and shine their torches.

"Would you look at that! That's lovely that is." The Doctor's ebullient voice echoed wildly in the cave as he shone his torch over the mass of prehistoric scribbling covering the cave walls, ceiling, and even floor. Rose was having a hard time making sense of any of it.

"I thought it would be more like that cave in France, with all sorts of Buffalo, and handprints everywhere." She shone her torch at the floor where it seemed like someone had done their best to draw a mass of bubbles that looked astonishingly light and fragile, despite being rendered in charcoal. Regretfully she noticed how her trainers had smudged foot sized patches of the drawing. She made a mental note to step more carefully.

"Doctor, what is all this?" Rose asked as she looked over to see him lightly tap the tuning fork against the cave wall.

"Well," he answered after a moment. "The pictures are certainly quite old; not quite to the 'dawn of time' perhaps, but at least as old as the Lion Cave in France." He cast a conciliatory grin at Moran. "More interesting than the date of the paintings though is their subjects which are either the earliest attempt at impressionist art yet recorded, or alien inspired." The Doctor seemed to almost dance through the chaotic placement of drawings, examining them without smudging them.

"Alien?" Moran protested from behind Rose. "These have been here for hundreds of thousands of years."

"Hardly a problem since there have been aliens around for hundreds of thousands of years." He crouched down to examine another patch of drawings on the floor. The shadows cast by his torch on his gangly limbs made it look a bit too much like a very large spider on the floor, and Rose shuddered. She wasn't generally claustrophobic, but the mass of drawings seemed to weigh on her oddly, and gave her a strange feeling of tension, as if something in her was shifting or straining.

More or less tuning out the Doctor's continuing explanation on how a some shapes worked out on the cave wall were almost an exact replica of mountain range on Felspoon, wherever that was, Rose moved carefully towards the back of the cave. Something, a trick of the torch light, maybe, had caught her eye and attention, and she wanted to see it a bit closer.

Her gasp drew the Doctor's attention.

"Rose?" She heard him ask from behind her, but she didn't respond as she looked at the drawing on the very back wall of the cave. It was actually the biggest drawing that she had seen yet, and no other drawings crowded in close, unlike most of the other paintings which looked almost cramped. Despite herself, Rose reached a hand toward it hardly wondering if she was going to ruin a priceless piece of history.

She touched the rock, feeling a moment of surprise that the drawing was actually more of an etching, and then traced her finger along the curve of the long jaw, and finely etched whiskers of a large wolf, graven into the stone like an eternal guardian.

"Doctor what do you make of this?"

Rose was sure that she probably should be frightened, or at least a little bit more surprised at the faint golden glow that seemed to be spreading out from where she touched along every line of the ancient stone etched wolf . However, her dominant emotion was actually just a kind of giddy anticipation. She turned back to look at the Doctor, to see what he was making of the drawing's strange reaction, but her eyes were immediately caught be the figure of a little girl standing in the middle of the cave floor.

**To all those who have read this far, I want to say, "Thanks"; and I especially appreciate those of you who have submitted reviews. I would love to say that I am indifferent to praise, and I write simply for the love of art, however, the truth is that I crave feedback, especially when it is constructive.**


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"What are you doing here?"

The little girl, with her blonde hair, and bright red hood looked exactly as Rose had seen her the first time on the sea dunes and again in the shop, and the hospital, and Moran Spozanga's kitchen, but her face was contorted with fear. Suddenly, Rose felt an almost overwhelming impulse to go to her and comfort her, but the girl held out her tiny hands as if to ward them all away.

"You must go away now." She looked pleadingly at Rose. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

"No, I know you don't." Rose smiled and spoke gently. "Don't worry, we're here to help. I'm Rose, and this is the Doctor." She looked over and nodded to the Doctor. His face held an odd expression, but she didn't take the time to analyze it; turning back to the little girl again.

"What's your name then?"

The little girl gnawed a little at her lower lip before answering.

"I'm the Little Red Hood. I'm the spirit of Darlig Uve Stranden."

Rose smiled

"Do you mind if I call you Red?"

Shyly, Red shrugged.

The sound of the Doctor coming around beside her drew Rose's attention.

"It's not every day that we meet a 'spirit', is it Doctor." He was being rather oddly quiet actually, she thought, turning to look at him. He was wearing the spectacles he'd picked up at the shop in the village the day before, and he was looking at her intently.

She gave a little nod toward the child in the middle of the room, silently encouraging. He shrugged, still looking at her and not the little girl which she found a bit irritating.

"I don't know, the occasional spirit is not all that uncommon. Seems not all that long ago we had those gas creature 'spirits', and then of course, there was your Mum's dad that turned out to be a Cyberman. Bad luck for your Mum of course." Rose frowned at him as he flicked the tuning fork with his finger and held it out in front of him, still talking.

"But I will say that it is a bit odd to meet someone that you can see and I can't."

Rose was nonplussed for a moment.

"You mean that you can't see the little girl standing in the middle of the cave? Can you hear her?"

The Doctor shook his head looking almost as frustrated as she had ever seen him.

"I'm getting a faint psychic signal, but it's not clear enough for any specific communication. Of course if I had my screwdriver…" he ended with almost a growl, turning to look back at Moran, where the Norwegian woman still stood near the entrance to the cave.

"Moran, can you see her? The little girl?"

The older woman nodded, her eyes fixed on the middle of the cave, where Rose could see Red standing but apparently the Doctor could not. Red was looking frightened again.

"It's all right Red. We will sort this, I promise." Rose kept her tone soothing as she glanced at the Doctor who was looking rapidly between her and Moran and the middle of the cave.

"This doesn't make sense. The tuning fork is indicating a high energy signature, and I can feel a psychic presence, so I'm pretty sure you two aren't hallucinating." He took off the glasses and tapped them against his teeth.

"So why can you two see it, and I can't?"

"Oi, don't be rude. It's a 'her'." Rose protested, which earned her a huff and an eye roll from the Doctor.

"Maybe if I could get a reading from the middle of the room..." He started foreword, but at his approach a little girl's gasp of fear caught Rose's attention. Red seemed to be cringing back, on the point of running, her eyes were fixed on the Doctor.

"Monster, monster!" She squeaked in a high note of terror. "It's going to eat me."

"Doctor stop!" Rose shouted. "Don't go any nearer. She's frightened of you."

"Red?" Rose focused on the little girl. "What are you scared of? It's just the Doctor, he wouldn't hurt you."

Red had her skinny little arms wrapped around her waist and was shivering.

"He's dark, and there are flashes of angry lightning all around him."

Rose swallowed and looked over at the Doctor.

_Born in battle. Filled with anger and revenge._

The Doctor looked back, face grim.

"What did she say?"

"I think that you might be showing a bit too much of your 'Oncoming Storm'."

He seemed to digest that.

"Well, plan 'B' then. This thing, little girl, spirit, whats-it; has some kind of psychic slash telepathic link with you two, and most of the native residents of Bad Wolf Bay. I would say that the only actual thing that you share is the fact that you are all humans, but then the problem becomes, why was Jackie not able to see her, with her being as human as they come?" He was moving now, the characteristic, manic energy leading him in a broad circuit of the cave. Somehow, despite the concentration he was putting into the problem before them, Rose noticed that he was still managing to avoid all the prehistoric art on the floor. The little girl that Rose thought of as Red was also watching the Doctor with wary eyes, turning to follow his progress.

"Maybe it's because I'm scary; and goodness knows Jackie is terrifying, but in any case, I'm going to have to get a look at it. Which means that I'm going to have to establish a neural link to bypass whatever's blocking me."

Rose caught him on the next go around, grabbing his sleeve before he could continue the circuit.

"Or, you could just, you know, take my hand." She reached down and interlaced her fingers with his, smiling at how right it felt. "Now look at her."

Through her hand she felt it when he saw Red, the slightest of involuntary twitches tightening his fingers on hers.

"Oh hello, that's brilliant. Your brilliant Rose. So this is Red is it?" He leaned forward to look at her, pulling Rose's hand with him.

"Cute as a button, you are." The Doctor grinned at Red's puzzled face, and stuck his glasses back on. "But what is a little girl like you doing in a cave, in Norway of all places?"

Red looked at Rose questioningly as if for reassurance..

"It's okay, you can answer him. He's here to help, honest."

Red looked for all the world like she was a child putting on her brave face as she answered.

"I was born here, sir."

"Sir, really? I must look scary to deserve a 'sir'." He looked back at Rose with such a comical look of seriousness that she couldn't help but laugh. "Really Rose, do I deserve to be called a 'sir'?"

"No way." Rose shook her head, still smiling.

"She thinks that you're funny." The small voice spoke slowly as she seemed to be working something out in her head. Hesitantly, the little face broke in to a smile.

"That's right," the Doctor encouraged. "No need to be frightened by the silly old Doctor." He smiled broadly back at the girl. "So you've been here a while, what do you get up to, to keep yourself entertained?"

"I'm the spirit of Darlig Uve Stranden, I rescue lost children and fishermen. I warn the people when danger is coming. I am a good spirit."

"Don't you have a Mum and Dad then?" Rose asked. What she really felt like doing right now was going to the little girl and wrapping her arms around her. The fact that she'd nearly fried the brains of three people was something Rose was aware of, but strangely it didn't diminish her desire. Still, the Doctor held her hand so she didn't move. The Little Red Hood glanced toward the back of the cave, and shrugged again before answering.

"I had a mother, but I can't remember her well anymore."

"You poor thing." Rose whispered, and began to move toward the girl, to loosen her hold on the Doctor's hand, but he held her in place, turning her to face him.

"Rose, she may look like a little girl, but she's not," He said looking intently into her eyes. "It is entirely likely that what has been causing all those brain injuries is her, so you need to stay as far away from her as possible."

"It's not my fault!" The protest from the child in the middle of the room drew both of their attention back around to her. "I wasn't trying to hurt Mylie, or Segun, or any of them, but when I touched them it went out all on its own." She stood looking miserable and frightened in the middle of the room, and finally mumbled. "I'm a good spirit."

"I'm sure you are Red, and I'm going to help you." The Doctor spoke to her solemnly, but then grinned. "With any luck, and I am a remarkably lucky man, we'll have this sorted out by tea time."

"First thing we have to do is figure out what you are and where you come from." The Doctor pulled Rose around with him toward the back of the cave.

"If my tuning fork isn't wrong, which considering I've never used a tuning fork for this before is a definite possibility. Nevertheless, there is almost certainly a very high energy reading coming from this area over here."

"You said that you had a mother, Red, do you remember where she came from, or what she looked like?"

Red's voice was small, and sad.

"My mother came from the other side of the rift. But it is closed now…" Then her voice perked up slightly. " But there is a picture that she left."

"Picture?" The doctor's turn brought Rose into a quick spin like they were in some kind of dance. "I love pictures, which one is your Mum?"

The little, blond girl in the red hood was suddenly no longer in the middle of the room. Her voice sounded from behind them where the back of the cave was.

"This is the picture that she left me."

Rose turned with the Doctor, and felt his fingers that held her hand go slack for a moment before tightening more firmly than they had yet. The large wolf etched in the cave wall was shining with golden light, so that suddenly they didn't need their torches.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"Moran!" The Doctor called back over his shoulder, as the golden light poured through the cave.. "You need to get out right now!"

A clatter, and rush of footsteps indicated that Moran had heeded his advice.

"Doctor, is that…?" Rose began, but her vision was cut off by the Doctor's hand suddenly covering her eyes.

"Don't look at it Rose!" He spoke urgently and she felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek. He called out to the strange red-hooded mystery child.

"Red, you need to turn it off now. We've seen the picture and now I need you to turn off the light."

Rose felt the light go out. It was like a change in air pressure only it was her whole body and not just her ears that felt the change. Immediately she tugged the Doctor's hand away from her eyes.

"It's the Bad Wolf, isn't it, Doctor?"

His face was inches from hers, examining her eyes carefully.

"Doctor?" She insisted.

"Yes, and that light was the Time Vortex." He backed away slightly, apparently satisfied that her eyes weren't going to start glowing or whatever he had been afraid of. "Which can't in any way be possible!" he added grimly.

A quiet sob in the newly darkened cave brought their attention back around. Rose moved her torch to sweep along the back of the cave, and spotted the little blond girl in her bright red hood, hunched underneath the now dark image of the Bad Wolf. She was so small, with her arms wrapped around her legs and her face resting on her knees.

_She's just a kid, a kid without a Mum. _ Rose thought, feeling tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

The Doctor's voice interrupted her thoughts.

"This is all, absolutely impossible!" He had let go of her hand to work out his manic energy in a frenzy of pacing throughout the cave.

"Bad Wolf, Time Vortex, ancient psychically tuned child consciousness…what does it mean?" Long fingers scrapped back through his hair, standing it completely on end.

"It's almost as if…Oh..!" He stopped pacing and stared blankly at the wall in front of him.

At any other time Rose Tyler would have been hanging onto the Doctor's every word, and reveling in the excitement of the mystery, but right now she mostly just couldn't keep her eyes off the little, crying, blond girl. Hardly noticing what she was doing she moved closer

"Rose, don't touch her!" The Doctor was suddenly back beside Rose, and she was just less than a yard away from the Little Red Hood.

"I know who she is, and I know how you are connected."

"What?" Rose asked, looking up at him in confusion. There was a strange look on the Doctor's face that came close to a kind of… well, awe.

"It's beyond brilliant, it's impossible, it's…" He glanced around helplessly. "I don't even have words to say what this is."

"No the end of the world then?" Rose asked, just to be sure, and watched as he sucked in a breath so that his cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk's before blowing it back out.

"Hard to be sure, but probably not. At least I'm fairly sure that I can fix the instability."

Rose had to laugh, which was answered by a big grin from the Doctor.

"But look at you! Look what you've gone and done, and I would have never thought of it in a million years." He rubbed his hands together and then clapped.

"Donna's right it must be just that little bit of something that comes from being from planet Earth."

"Doctor, I really don't understand." Rose protested.

Taking her by the shoulders the Doctor turned her to face Red, who was looking up at both of them with confusion written plain on her face.

"She's yours, you created her." Rose just stared. "Well, you and the TARDIS that is."

"What, you mean you think the Bad Wolf…" Rose couldn't quite manage to finish her sentence, but the Doctor was in full swing.

"It seems inevitable now that I look at it; you looked into the heart of the TARDIS because you knew she would help you save me. But the heart of the TARDIS also showed you that she was the last of her kind. Rose Tyler, most human of all humans, you couldn't just stand for that, and you had all space and time to work with. You two! The TARDIS and Rose Tyler, thick as thieves, you figured out a way for the TARDIS to split a piece, just the tiniest fragment of its central core off, most likely incubated in you, to embed here in this parallel world, fed with temporal energy from the rift and psychic energy from the pre-historic people here."

The Doctor shook his head, obviously reveling in the concept.

"It would take centuries, even millennia for the seed to develop, but now look at her!"

"But, Doctor, what's going on with the people who have been hurt?" Rose was too confused to even know where to really begin, but she figured that was a big question.

"Power flux, energy ricochet." He shoved his hand in his pockets and looked up towards the cave ceiling. "The TARDIS has probably been stabilizing Red here through the rift, but now it has snapped shut for good, and so the umbilical is cut." He chewed on his lip. "A young TARDIS, practically a toddler really, but with a good sized time vortex already started and a human patterned consciousness." He drew in sharp whistle of breath. "We're kind of lucky that it hasn't been worse, really."

"So what you're saying," Rose spoke while working through her thoughts. "Is that without her Mum, the TARDIS's help, she can't keep control of the time vortex, and it's bleeding out onto everyone she touches?"

The Doctor nodded absently, holding up his tuning fork to his ear and tapping it gently with a piece of gravel from the cave floor.

"Plus, I think that she might be going through a growth spurt, which would explain most of the accidents and general lethargy around the village, since she seems to draw some amount of energy from people around here."

"But you can fix it somehow, stabilize her, or whatsit?" Rose asked.

"Yeah, no problem."

Rose took a good look at his face, and asked again.

"Doctor?"

He sighed.

"It's easy to build a TARDIS, or a TARDIS shell, I should say. Once she is in that the time vortex will be shielded, so she can't do damage." He still didn't look as pleased or confident as he should, so Rose prompted.

"And, so what's the problem?"

"The TARDIS shell will shield her and probably stabilize the time vortex, but that still leaves her with an energy problem."

"Because the Rift is closed?" Rose asked and got an approving look from the Doctor. She felt a warm glow from that look for a few moments and then her forehead furrowed at a new thought. "But is there even any energy that she can use here in this universe? You said that the TARDIS drew energy from the other universe, and it was all but dead here." Rose looked at him in horror. "Does that mean Red is going to starve to death?"

The Doctor spoke slowly, "I don't think so, but I'm not sure how much she was relying on the Rift."

Rose frowned and let her gaze drift over the image of the wolf on the wall, and then down to linger on the little red heap made by the girl on the floor, with her hood and cloak drawn about her.

"But it doesn't make sense, why did the TARDIS put her daughter into this universe in the first place? How could she leave her alone like this?" Rose asked, aware that there was heat in her voice. The Doctor put a hand on her shoulder.

"You have to remember that the TARDIS isn't human Rose. It wouldn't think of it like that."

Rose shook her head.

"No! No mum would do this." She focused on the little girl. "Me and the TARDIS were together in this, and I know I wouldn't leave a little kid alone like this."

The Doctor made a noise of exasperation, and she could tell that he was making an even bigger mess of his hair. The strange tension was back though, and somehow it seemed more insistent. Hesitantly she took another step closer to the psychic projection of the little girl, but her eyes were drawn back up toward the wolf image on the cave wall.

"The Bad Wolf. A sign to lead me back to myself," She murmured, then she spoke louder, not caring if she interrupted the Doctor's train of thought.

"Doctor, you said Red was drawing energy from the people in the village, which means that she probably can draw energy from this universe, even without the Rift. Right?"

Rose could hear the frown in the Doctor's words without having to turn and look at him.

"Yes, but she's draining them of their life force, and even with the whole village it still won't be enough to keep her going unless she learns how to process the raw temporal energy around her."

Rose took another step and asked.

"So, how do TARDIS's usually figure out how to do this harvesting thing?"

The Doctor was suddenly right beside her, examining her face intently. She spared him a glance, waiting for his answer. He looked uneasy, but spoke lightly.

"I'm not really an expert, but I suppose they learn the way most young creatures do, watching their parents and then doing what they do."

She was within reach of the cave wall, but the Doctor held her hands. His hold was gentle, but it wasn't yielding either.

"Rose, I need you," He spoke softly, drawing her attention to him with his voice. His face was open in a way that she had only seen a few times in all the time they had been together, and he looked intensely vulnerable. "I just got you back and I..." He broke off for a moment and swallowed before speaking again. "I want to have a house and a mortgage, and a job… I suppose… And I want you to share the mortgage, do you understand?"

Despite everything, the situation, the strange insistent tension pulling her toward the wall, and the dark, claustrophobia inducing cave, Rose had to smile; to grin really, as her heart did a giddy little jig of pure happiness.

"You know," she said, still smiling. "That will be great as code, if we ever have kids."

Then, still smiling at the look of utter shock on the Doctor's face, she reached out and touched the wall.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

There was a flash of golden light in the cave when Rose touched the wolf image on the cave wall. The Doctor's eyes closed for a second in reaction, and his cry of protest was swallowed up in a sound like wind or water rushing through the cave.

When he opened his eyes the Bad Wolf stood before him, surrounding by the glow of the Time Vortex, with the psychic projection of the little, blond girl, in her arms. She smiled at him and brushed strands of hair from the little girl's forehead.

She looked happy and inordinately distant to him.

"Rose." He croaked, feeling his throat lock up. His one friend, the one person he loved in this universe of exile.

_She's gone._ He thought.

"Rose, I'm sorry. I can't bring you back from this one."

He closed his eyes again feeling like a coward, but also knowing that he couldn't bear to watch her die. To see the time vortex burn through her eyes and her mind and then turn her to dust. _Leaving me truly alone._

"Doctor." Rose's, _No, the Bad Wolf's_, he corrected himself_, _voice spoke to him. He ignored it until her warm hand touched his cheek, and then he had to look at her. She was still smiling.

"Doctor, you do not need to fear, the human, Rose Tyler is safe."

The Doctor felt anger.

"How can she be safe with the Time Vortex burning its way through her brain?"

The Bad Wolf remained serene.

"I am but a fraction of my power; the last glow of a spark struck long ago for this moment in time." She stroked a finger down the cheek of the little girl in her arms. "I shield Rose Tyler now, just as I have always shielded her, so that now I may finish what the both of us started."

"How can you do that?" The Doctor was nonplussed. "It's impossible."

The Bad Wolf's smile widened and she shook her head.

"My dearest of Doctors, Time Lord you may be, and ancient in the eyes of all but a few. But still you do not possess a fraction of the knowledge you need to grasp what is, or is not possible."

The Doctor rocked back on his heels to stare at her for a moment, and then shrugged.

"But why this, why the little girl?" He could feel the tuning fork vibrate in his hand even though he hadn't struck it, and the whine of sound from it was enough of an irritant that he grimaced. "TARDIS's are only semi-sentient, and in any case they are gender neutral."

The Bad Wolf's smile didn't waver, but it did take on just the slightest hint of chagrin.

"Yes, but Rose Tyler is most definitely human, and if there is one trait that can be recognized above all other's in humanity, it is their ability to reinterpret whatever they see in light of their own understanding." She shrugged and continued. "She looked into the TARDIS's heart and saw her own, and thus changed the TARDIS and the shape of the universe around her just enough to make Time And Relative Dimension In Space cast into a human pattern."

The Doctor shook his head at the sheer enormity of the implications.

"I always thought the TARDIS was just getting a bit temperamental in her older centuries, but this…" he broke off, and then started again. "And then of course, there was Jack, but it seemed like that was just a fluke." He chewed a little on his lip, feeling some especially strong quivers from the tuning fork travel up from his fingers.

"This is," he pronounced slowly. "Almost unimaginably dangerous, what you and her have done. What you two are doing now, actually."

The Bad Wolf nodded.

"Indeed, no Time Lord would even consider it. The power of a TARDIS, the frailty of a personality, and the weakness of emotions, it is a huge risk." The Bad Wolf was no longer smiling, but focused on him intently.

"This is why we placed her in this universe, Doctor, where we knew it would eventually come to this. This choice."

The Doctor felt himself tense up.

"What choice?"

The Bad Wolf continued to speak solemnly to him.

"Red is weak now, she drew most of her energy from the Rift, and now that is closed. She is as a newborn, cut off from the mother's oxygen supply, she has not yet taken her first breath.

In this moment, all hangs in the balance, and it is your choice that will determine whether I give this last child of the TARDIS the means to draw energy from this universe, or allow it dwindle and die, becoming but a memory."

Despite himself the Doctor looked down at the child in the Bad Wolf's arms, looking so exquisitely real and peaceful as she seemed to sleep. He swallowed hard, feeling the weight of too many years and choices bearing down on him.

"Why me?" He asked. "You and Rose cooked this up, why bring me into it now?"

The Bad Wolf cocked her head slightly.

"Because it is your right as the last of the Time Lords, and your duty."

He huffed out an angry breath at that, but she continued.

"You also have this choice because Rose knew that she couldn't make it. She knew the danger her making could cause, but she still loved it. She trusted you to do the right thing."

The Doctor winced. _She trusted me to do the right thing, not herself, not the TARDIS, but me._ He shook his head. _ No pressure._

He'd had companions, so many companions, and they had all trusted him to one degree or another, but Rose's trust had always been single focused and defining. He had felt it as an almost tangible force hedging him in at times.

That he would do the right thing.

"I don't always do the right thing, you know." The Doctor spoke in frustration, dragging his fingers back through his hair.

"For goodness sake, I have a space and time machine and my chief form of amusement is giggling at archeologists and collecting ridiculous neckties from the far corners of the universe." He felt memories crash in on him, despite his efforts. The glow of the volcano as it engulfed Pompeii, the sight of Pete Tyler stepping in front of the speeding car, the sound of Davros shouting as millions of Daleks exploded around him. The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut, willing the memories to fade, trying to control his breathing.

"What if I don't choose?"

The Bad Wolf smiled sadly.

"This moment will not last forever, and Red does not live without you choosing to let her."

"See, that right there!" The Doctor shouted. "Giving her a name, giving her a cute little face, with cute little blond curls. Now she's a person, not a TARDIS. A person that I have to choose whether they live or die."

"But what if she grows up, and because she's a person decides that she knows best? She starts messing around with timelines, wiley-niley. She could bring this universe crashing down, even create paradoxes to crack the cosmos." He flung out his hands in helpless pleading. "How can I let that happen, even as a possibility?"

The cave was silent except for the echoes of his own voice reverberating off the walls. The Bad Wolf's face, other than holding an expression of sympathy, gave him nothing. His thoughts on the other hand would not shut up.

_Yes, certainly, a virtually ageless being tooling around space and time, messing with timelines, and with the freedom of a personality is obviously unacceptable. Hmm, who does that sound like?_

_O' yes, me!_

"Well, you don't have to go being facetious." He muttered, grimacing at his own feet. He closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them again he was looking directly into the Bad Wolf's glowing golden ones.

"I can't choose to let her die." He shook his head. "Not like this, not without giving her a chance." He squared his shoulders.

"Go ahead, give her breath."

Light flooded the cave, so that it overwhelmed the Doctor's vision, leaving him with only the impression of the Bad Wolf's smiling face.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Time stood still, and the Doctor couldn't tell how long he stood surrounded by the rush of light and time. Eons whirled past like a wayward breeze through his hair, and he hardly knew what had become of his body, since he certainly wasn't aware of it. Then, suddenly it all went rushing back. The floor was once again under his feet, and the light was dim and only streaming out from his torch.

For a moment the Doctor struggled for his balance, casting the light around the cave, searching.

"Rose?" He called.

"Oi, not in the eyes please!"

The unmistakably peevish tone in Rose Tyler's voice was music to the Doctor's ears. He bounded forward and caught her in a hug; leaning back only enough to check her eyes.

"It's all right Doctor," Rose smiled. "She's all gone, and not even the smell of smoke."

He grinned, and then, because he couldn't really help himself; he kissed her.

She kissed him back, of course, and for a few moments that was all that either of them was really aware of. Then another voice sounded in the cave.

"Eww, that looks like you are trying to eat each other!"

Rose yelped, and the Doctor spun looking for the source of the voice. The torch light came to rest, after a little wild searching, on a figure leaning against the cave wall. The person looked back at him with a frank, wryly amused expression.

"Your hair looks like a porcupine."

A gangly, blond girl. illuminated in the torch light, looked to be around eight or nine, and was wearing a bright, red hoody and jeans.

"Oi, be polite you little scamp, and come over here." Rose's voice surprised the Doctor with its overall ease and surety. He was even more surprised at the young girl's reaction of immediate obedience, skipping quickly over, and putting her arms around Rose's waist. He looked at them both for a moment with his eyebrows raised before finally speaking.

"Well, Jackie's going to be pleased," he thought for a moment more. "That is, assuming that she can see Red now."

Rose laughed.

"You're kidding, she's going to be all over me for making her look old, giving her a grandkid and all that."

"I can be seen by whoever I want to now." Red added proudly, and The Doctor smiled at her.

"Aren't you a clever girl." He took out his tuning fork and tapped it. "Are you feeling all right? No more wibbliness?"

The girl giggled and shook her head as he held the tuning fork in front of her. Rose's voice had laughter in it as well.

"Is that a technical term from Gallifrey, Doctor? Wibbliness?"

"O'yeah," satisfied he stuck the tuning fork back in his pocket. "You find me a Gallifreyen medical dictionary and I'll show you right enough."

He gave them both his best "professional" face, sticking his glasses back on to give Red a finally look over.

"Well then, in my esteemed medical opinion…Now stop that giggling!" He gave both girls a severe look, which seemed to have little effect, so he gave up. "Oh, off you go; you're as right as rain and stable as ever you can be."

Both Red and Rose let out little whoops of delight, and before he knew what was happening, Rose had both him and Red in a giant bear hug.

"Mum, you're squishing me!" Red protested, wriggling out of the hug as only a preadolescent can, and then dashed away toward the mouth of the cave. Which left Rose and him holding each other.

The Doctor looked down at Rose, and found her giving him a look that he couldn't quite interpret. She seemed to be looking for something in his face.

"Rose?" He finally prompted, when the silent regard went on for a few moments. She pursed her lips and cocked her head to one side as if trying to look at his face from another angle, and then shrugged.

"I'm just wondering how you're going to handle it, that's all" She finally admitted, which still didn't make much sense to him.

"Handle what?" He felt his eyebrows furrow in puzzlement, as she rolled her eyes.

"Well, it's all a bit 'domestic' now, isn't it?" He felt her shrug again. "It's not like you can pop back to 2012 to see the Olympics again when you're feeling low anymore." She chewed on her lip a little. "And now there's Red to take care of."

"And you're wondering how I'm going to handle that." He finished for her. She nodded. He thought about it.

It wasn't actually so difficult to figure out what he was feeling, the real challenge was figuring out how to express it. He spoke slowly.

"I've been running for a long time, knocking about time and space…and I suppose at some time it was just going to be for a laugh." He stopped, feeling memories rising up again, and swallowed. "But… when the Time War… when Gallifrey died, when I became the last…" He looked away and blinked a few times. "Well, it was a bit like I died." He felt Rose's arms tighten around him, but now he knew what he had to say.

"I was the last, alone in the great big universe, and I had the choice that I could either let myself die and not regenerate or I could just keep running." He remembered that choice, remembered the yawning dread of either possibility.

"But if I kept running, I could never stop because…well, because there was no life for me anywhere else. Nothing that wouldn't eventually die and leave me alone."

He swallowed again and looked down at Rose, but she had her face pressed into his chest. Absently, he reached up to stroke her hair.

"Things like family dinners, and tea, and Christmas presents. All that domesticity…I just couldn't do it, because I knew that I would eventually have to leave…or they would have to leave, either because of death, or because they just moved on…I just didn't want to get so involved that I couldn't bear living without it." He drew in a great shuddering breath, feeling his one, poor heart take the strain of all his emotions.

_I never understood how humans could do it before, with just one heart._ He shook the thought away and focused on getting to his point, that elusive spot where all his rambling made sense.

"But, I can't run anymore, and I can't regenerate, and…" The Doctor suddenly, intensely, needed to see Rose's face; to see how her eyes responded to his words. He moved his hand to cup the back of her head, and as gently as he could, tipped her face back to look at him.

"…and I don't want to be alone anymore, with no family to share dinner with, and no Jackie to force tea down my throat, and no Rose to give that perfect little thing to at Christmas."

Rose's mascara was on the verge of running down her face again, he could see from the way the tears wobbled on the corners of her eyes. He smiled, marveling at how something as small as smudged makeup could be so very dear.

As always, Rose smiled back, and with a sniffle, reached up and rubbed the tears from her eyes; which did indeed result in smears of dark stuff around her eyes.

"And, what about Red then?" She asked, her eyes searching his.

The Doctor had to laugh.

"Rose, you wonderful girl, you have somehow against all possibility brought a baby TARDIS into a parallel world. Time And Relative Dimension In Space, and she's calling you Mum!" He grinned at her and shook his head, then sobered. "And, you love her, which would be enough for me, in any case."

Rose's grin was suddenly luminous, and she gave him a squeeze that left him gasping. Then she reached up and pulled his head down till his face was just fractions of an inch from hers.

"Say it again."

He felt the gentle burr of her breath on his lips as she spoke. He raised a questioning eyebrow, and she bumped him gently with her nose.

"Go on then, Doctor, finish that sentence."

Without thinking about it his arms tightened around her, feeling the solidity of Rose Tyler of earth; the girl who looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and shot herself across worlds and universes to find him. He smiled, and then leaned in to whisper three little words into her ear.

And, that was enough.

In a little while they would have to make arrangements, and fiddle around with details. Red still needed a shell for her physical essence, and there was still all that mundanity of actual life, with Thursday afternoons, and Sunday's, dreaded Sunday's.

But for now, this was enough.

The End

**Thank you, to all who have accompanied me on this little jaunt into the universe (or should I say) multi-verse of Doctor Who; I hope that you have enjoyed the ride. **

**I am actually quite proud of myself for this story; not because I think it is so well written, but because it marks the second story that I have ever written and actually finished, and I am very excited. **

**Molto Bene!**


End file.
